Everest is not only the tallest mountain in the world but also has great sanctity. But this sanctity is being defiled. Every year, during the expedition season, around 700 climbers and guides spend nearly two months atop Ever­est. When they climb down, they leave behind large amounts of feces, urine and other pollutants. Such pollutants are piling up in areas above 5,000 meters. At the base camps, wastes are collected in drums, and disposed of when the drums are full. But, from 5,300 meters on, there are no toilets and human waste is directly deposited in the snow. New climbers report that the route to the top of Everest is not just crowded but terri­bly polluted too. The area is covered with empty oxygen cylinders, food wrappers, broken tents, batteries, mountain gears and other accesso­ries including clothes and backpacks of climbers and guides.

 

 

Worse still, there are around 200 dead bodies in Everest, including that of George Mallory after his disappearance in 1924. Pollution in Everest is a threat to human civilization too, as the whole Himalayan range including Everest is a source of fresh water for South Asia and beyond.

 

However, there are still those who argue that survival of the climbers and supporting staff in a ‘death zone’, coupled with supporting the local economy, should be the first priority, while bringing back the abandoned moun­taineering gears should be a distant second priority.

 

There have been some efforts to clean up Everest. But they are inadequate to deal with the scale of the pollution on such a harsh terrain. Dawa Steven Sherpa and his clean-up team, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee and Tara Air have been carrying out Everest clean-up expeditions on their own. Likewise, the govern­ment has obliged the climbers to bring back the garbage in order to get their deposits back. But, again, such efforts, even though made in good faith, are not enough.

 

In the absence of effective monitoring, government actions are no more than rituals as the focus is still on generating more revenue, as if Everest is a cow that can be milked endlessly.

 

The first thing we should do is reduce excessive commercialization of Everest and preserve its sanc­tity. The flow of climbers cannot continue indefinitely unless we clean up our mountains. Everest should be a perennial source of income for Nepali tourism, not a short-lived tourism product. This is why our primary focus should be on promoting expeditions that produce less pollutants.

 

For this, wind power can be harnessed in Everest so that the climbers need not carry cooking gas. Likewise, the climbers can be encouraged to carry solar panels with them, for cooking and other purposes.

 

But the focus right now should be on removing garbage from Everest through innovative ideas. Recent­ly, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (better known by its French acronym UIAA) has given some financial support to a project designed to produce gas from human waste on Everest. The next step could be fixing sim­ple ropes at certain locations with which to send down garbage to the base camps. Such innovative, and mass-scale, measures are desper­ately needed.

 

By Dr Ganesh Gurung

The author is a former member of the National Planning Commission and currently an advisor to Nepal mountaineering Association (NMA)